I never denied it either but I think they exist and I believe they have existed in the past. One such example that is hard to doubt is Nietzsche. How about I draw on what he said in one of his books, say "Twilight of the Idols"?

You are asking me to show you that we already found something that doesn't need a hypothetical about a trillion years into the future. This "something" related to a doubt of Platonic forms that philosophers have already raised, such as Nietzsche. I have already shown you doubts from my own thoughts that you've not even addressed, but you're still asking to be shown, so maybe he will help? It's a real struggle to extract any sense from you about both your own explanations or even your requirements for proof, so all I can do is add to the pile of what I've already offered with the following.

Right at the beginning of the fore-mentioned book, in "The Problem of Socrates" Nietzsche writes that he "recognized Socrates and Plato as symptoms of decay" standing "in the same negative relation to life": "It was he who handed himself the poison cup". This continues to be advanced shortly later in "The Four Great Errors" that begins with "There is no more dangerous error than that of mistaking the consequence for the cause". An example of this error is mentioned just before in "'Reason' in Philosophy": "The 'apparent' world is the only one: the 'real' world has only been lyingly added..." as he draws from Heraclitus. Plato inverts this, mistaking the consequence of seeing similar "forms" caused by "the apparent" as "Platonic forms" that cause "the apparent". In true Nietzschean style, he is merely diagnosing sickness and decadence in the kind of intellect that demotes the real to mere illusion that is "in fact" caused by a "more real reality" that lurks beneath - which they aspire to reach in just the same way as the Christian does. Back to "The Problem of Socrates": "To have to combat one's instincts - that is the formula for décadence".

He goes on to sum up the mechanism by which the "monstrum in fronte, monstrum in animo" turn away from life in "How the 'Real World' at last Became a Myth".

This is just the beginning of one book by one more recent philosopher - I only stick to Nietzsche because it's him that I know best. There are plenty of others to pick from, just pick one and go from there. I may attack your ideas, but I am not your enemy, I am trying to help.

I'm not vitriolic or hating, though I am uncompromising in the expression of my frustration with characters such as yourself who present themselves as having easy answers like some kind of prophet or saviour whilst having little to no real substance to back it up - as elucidated by the kind of rigorous deconstruction that I admittedly take joy in providing. It's hard not to develop an ego when you have put a lot of time and energy into getting particularly good at doing this, but I genuinely try to hold it back as much as I can - my apologies if it slips through.

I never denied it either but I think they exist and I believe they have existed in the past. One such example that is hard to doubt is Nietzsche. How about I draw on what he said in one of his books, say "Twilight of the Idols"?

You are asking me to show you that we already found something that doesn't need a hypothetical about a trillion years into the future. This "something" related to a doubt of Platonic forms that philosophers have already raised, such as Nietzsche. I have already shown you doubts from my own thoughts that you've not even addressed, but you're still asking to be shown, so maybe he will help? It's a real struggle to extract any sense from you about both your own explanations or even your requirements for proof, so all I can do is add to the pile of what I've already offered with the following.

Right at the beginning of the fore-mentioned book, in "The Problem of Socrates" Nietzsche writes that he "recognized Socrates and Plato as symptoms of decay" standing "in the same negative relation to life": "It was he who handed himself the poison cup". This continues to be advanced shortly later in "The Four Great Errors" that begins with "There is no more dangerous error than that of mistaking the consequence for the cause". An example of this error is mentioned just before in "'Reason' in Philosophy": "The 'apparent' world is the only one: the 'real' world has only been lyingly added..." as he draws from Heraclitus. Plato inverts this, mistaking the consequence of seeing similar "forms" caused by "the apparent" as "Platonic forms" that cause "the apparent". In true Nietzschean style, he is merely diagnosing sickness and decadence in the kind of intellect that demotes the real to mere illusion that is "in fact" caused by a "more real reality" that lurks beneath - which they aspire to reach in just the same way as the Christian does. Back to "The Problem of Socrates": "To have to combat one's instincts - that is the formula for décadence".

He goes on to sum up the mechanism by which the "monstrum in fronte, monstrum in animo" turn away from life in "How the 'Real World' at last Became a Myth".

This is just the beginning of one book by one more recent philosopher - I only stick to Nietzsche because it's him that I know best. There are plenty of others to pick from, just pick one and go from there. I may attack your ideas, but I am not your enemy, I am trying to help.

I'm not vitriolic or hating, though I am uncompromising in the expression of my frustration with characters such as yourself who present themselves as having easy answers like some kind of prophet or saviour whilst having little to no real substance to back it up - as elucidated by the kind of rigorous deconstruction that I admittedly take joy in providing. It's hard not to develop an ego when you have put a lot of time and energy into getting particularly good at doing this, but I genuinely try to hold it back as much as I can - my apologies if it slips through.

You didn't talk to what I spoke about.

These really ancient philosophers realized that you can be hit by four sticks, but you cannot be hit by the number four. The number four cannot be found in space or time, so it must exist outside space and time. An eternal realm that doesn't begin or end.

Like I said, it's a struggle to extract what you're actually talking about - the title of the thread is whether any of us still doubt you about platonic forms and I was giving you reasoning to doubt platonic forms.

Now you're telling me I didn't talk about what you were speaking about... - was I not thus approaching your thoughts logically?

Ecmandu wrote:These really ancient philosophers realized that you can be hit by four sticks, but you cannot be hit by the number four. The number four cannot be found in space or time, so it must exist outside space and time. An eternal realm that doesn't begin or end.

You truly are underestimating the brilliance of these people.

1)i) Sticks in space and time ii) Sticks can be observed individually as different events iii) These different events can be differentiated as one, then two, then three, then four iv) These numbered events are not the sticks themselves in space and time v) The classifications of one, two, three and four can be used generally for not just sticks vi) Oneness, twoness, threeness and fourness are not bound specifically to that which they denote in space and time2) One, two, three and four (and all numbers in general) themselves do not have the same reality as sticks in space and time3) If numbers don't have spatio-temporal reality like sticks, they exist outside space and time

There's presumably at least this number of layers to the abstraction of something such as numbers into Platonic forms. Don't think the "logic" isn't apparent to those who see a problem with it - and by all means we should respect it in its historical context as brilliant for the time.

I bring up Nietzsche because he truly brings philosophy back in touch with its physiological origins, psychologising in these terms only to diagnose the mentality of inverting reality with the imaginary. This is what Plato did when he proposed "an eternal realm that doesn't begin or end", and the added sense of "means, motive, and opportunity" really puts into perspective the musings about whether such a conclusion is valid.

In terms only of the validity of the conclusion, looking at the logical progression that I reeled off above from the top of my head, I think it's something that goes on at around 1)vi)There has to be a sleight of hand performed at some point that removes "the general" from the embedded reality of "the specific".Only then can you jump to a notion of "the essence" of numbers as removed from space and time, and thus conclude that they exist outside of space and time.

Allow me to put the whole process in real terms - are you ready?

Numbers and any words that "denote" a real, tangible, physical thing are in themselves real, tangible and physical. On the surface they are a sound, a visual symbol, a tactile impulse such as with braille and so forth. They are a sensation of a specific codified type that is not the same things as that which they denote, but which is much easier to deal with and more compact - e.g. you can write about a whole world in something as portable as a book. But "underneath the hood", the brain is merely reinforcing (myelinating) neural pathways that occur more often, such as the one that connects "the signified" and "the signifier". This is why kids love asking "what's that?" constantly - they are myelinating together their reality with the code of language. "One" stick ends up lighting up similarly to "one" stone, and so forth, until the sensation of "oneness" in your mind is consolidated into its own neural pathway in and of itself - without necessarily applying to something in particular. That's how the brain works: association.

Thus numbers are entirely real as a chemical response that feels like "recognition", with or without a code (e.g. the written symbol "1") that "signifies" something "signified" such as a single stick.

The error in thinking is the conception of reality as the "signified" as separate from the "signifier", which by black-and-white contrast can be lumped into "not reality". Perception occurs in the brain, not in the eyes and ears etc. and "stick" and "one" are not one bit different in this respect. Given this fact, Plato et al. need only re-conceive what reality is - except "tragically" they did not have access to the scientific knowledge that we have today.

1.) Something cannot come from nothing2.) If something comes from something else, it's first substantiation still solves as it coming from nothing, unless there is a way in which it has always been there

What this does is put a force on platonic forms, or rather, eternal forms, without which, everything is concluded to come from nothing. Nothing at all isn't there for anything to come from, so this possibility and the possibility of something coming from something else are out. The thing must come from the thing itself. The best theory for this is that the thing itself occupies many different dimensions at once; one of them being eternal.

My way isn't a shortcut at all, it just keeps things within the realm of what's testable with complete sufficiency.

Your way tries to be a shortcut by casting away answers to some other untestable realm. "The answers are there, but out of your reach to disprove them" - how convenient. And says who? Why should we believe you when they're just as inaccessible to you? You only say they logically must be because they're there but not here. Firstly, that isn't a necessary logical sequitur, and secondly I showed you why they are here after all, you just need to change your perspective to something that better fits the reality of our own testable realm. 2000 years of thought and searching can do that to old ideas, smart as they appeared to be in their own time.

"Something cannot come from nothing"Obviously eternal forms are supposed to be "something" just as much as the "apparent world", and the proposition is that neither can come from nothing."Something can come from something"This is intended to apply to the "apparent world", but not "eternal forms". Eternal forms are supposed to render the proposition invalid: "comes from" doesn't apply to it. They neither "come from" something nor nothing, they always were.The implication is that the apparent world has to come from "somewhere" (supposedly from eternal forms), but why do eternal forms escape the validity of the question but the apparent world does not?

If the apparent world was eternal, then "something cannot come from nothing" is equally invalid to say about it as it is to eternal forms.

An alternative is that "comes from" is valid not just for the apparent world.Are eternal forms themselves something that has to come from something? Do they themselves have eternal forms? Can something come from itself? Can't the apparent world continually unfold unto itself? That's how it appears at least, so if it is implied that it comes from something why does it need to come from a thing that's different to itself (e.g. eternal forms)?

So we have 3 questions:Is "comes from" a necessity?If so, can something "come from" itself?If neither, what is the "something else" that something "comes from"?

You have to answer "yes for the apparent world, but no for the eternal", "no" and "somewhere that you can't prove it doesn't". That's just 1 answer and not the "best theory" by any stretch. You have to prove the apparent world isn't eternal for the first question, you have to prove something can't come from itself for the second, and you have to prove that where it comes from is out of all possible things "somewhere that you can't prove it doesn't" - which by definition you can't!The better theory is that if "comes from" is a necessity, the apparent world comes from itself, continually unfolding unto itself exactly how it appears and completely within the real realms of testability.

When you put a spoon in a bowl of soup, and put it to your mouth to slurp, has the spoon always existed?Has the soup? This is a very critical point here, if it hasn't always existed, then it came ex nihilo.

If it has always existed, then motion cannot occur in existence, everything freezes, becomes nothing at all. Remember, this part is the world you said is verifiable and testable that comes from itself... a world that has to freeze in order for existents to not come from nothing at all, thus becoming nothing at all.

So either it comes from nothing at all, or it is nothing at all.

How do you escape this trap?

Eternal forms don't have infinite regress...

There isn't the spooness of the spooness of the spooness...

So that was a straw man.

Nothing by definition:isn't

So then we're left with eternal forms to explain the somethingness of everything.

Somewhere, to avoid contradiction, that spoon and that slurping exists outside space time in an eternal dimension.

Ecmandu wrote:When you put a spoon in a bowl of soup, and put it to your mouth to slurp, has the spoon always existed?

The spoon and soup are constituted of matter/energy that have always existed, and certain configurations are recognisable as "spoon" and "soup" due to the fundamental forces holding them together in various stable ways.

Ecmandu wrote:If it has always existed, then motion cannot occur in existence, everything freezes, becomes nothing at all. Remember, this part is the world you said is verifiable and testable that comes from itself... a world that has to freeze in order for existents to not come from nothing at all, thus becoming nothing at all.

So either it comes from nothing at all, or it is nothing at all.

Your problem is that you're thinking in terms of labels (e.g. "spoon" and "soup") and not the real constituent parts that merely need to reconfigure to cause the different things to exist that you can label. The labels aren't the reality, the testable constituents are.

If two hydrogen atoms and an oxygen atom have always existed, they can still move relative to one another, however relatively frozen they are in their stable states, and the fundamental forces are all you need to add for the different arrangements to amount to all the multitude of sensory outcomes that we enjoy at the unassisted human level of perception and beyond.

You're advocating the need for frozen labels for your conception to hold, and yet nothing in reality ever exactly matches these ideal forms. The forms aren't even possible - there is no perfect spoon or soup, there's just different arrangements of the world that are sometimes loosely but closely enough identifiable as spoon, soup etc.

There's really no need to escape the real world in hope and wonder of a "more real" world that has all the answers. Don't be such a Christian. Everything you need is right here if you just look a little more closely and rigorously, and like Nietzsche diagnosed, if you can't cope without your inversion of cause and consequence, you are sick. At least Plato had the excuse of not yet knowing about modern science.

If a particle ends up somewhere that it's never been before, causing a new substantiation of the universe as a whole, it's the very nature of the newness, something coming from something else, that forces something coming from nothing, unless it has always existed in that state, which is also nothing, moving from soup to particles doesn't change the unassailable logic.

Ecmandu wrote:Edited my last post to respond better to the whole post instead of part of it.

Can you edit it again? Your 8-sectioned sentence lacks clarity.

You're saying a single particle moving to a new place is newness of all particles as a whole -> this is something coming from something else which is the same as something coming from nothing -> eternal states are also nothing (of which you're arguing in favour)... and somehow this string of quite clear contradictions doesn't change an unassailable logic?

I mean.......... what?!

Also, if you keep having to edit your posts because you're launching into a defense of only the first part my posts without even reading it all yet, I suggest you take a more rationed attitude to debating. The first read can be hard because it attacks your investment - that's not the time to reply. Stand back after you've read it all, calm down, honestly consider the truth behind what the other person is saying, then respond with a view to the truth rather than saving your ego. Otherwise you'll never get anywhere in debate.

Ecmandu wrote:Edited my last post to respond better to the whole post instead of part of it.

Can you edit it again? Your 8-sectioned sentence lacks clarity.

You're saying a single particle moving to a new place is newness of all particles as a whole -> this is something coming from something else which is the same as something coming from nothing -> eternal states are also nothing (of which you're arguing in favour)... and somehow this string of quite clear contradictions doesn't change an unassailable logic?

I mean.......... what?!

Also, if you keep having to edit your posts because you're launching into a defense of only the first part my posts without even reading it all yet, I suggest you take a more rationed attitude to debating. The first read can be hard because it attacks your investment - that's not the time to reply. Stand back after you've read it all, calm down, honestly consider the truth behind what the other person is saying, then respond with a view to the truth rather than saving your ego. Otherwise you'll never get anywhere in debate.

I read your whole post, went to the most important part of the discussion, and then realized it was rude to not address the other two points. A whopping 5 minute delay is hardly characteristic of cherry picking.

So here's the deal:

You either understand this concept or not:

If anything never was, but, suddenly is, it's the same as something coming from nothing.

The argument against this is that something comes from something else, which by definition, isn't nothing.

To which I reply, any novel construct had no precedence, coming from no precedence is the same as coming from nothing. It's novelty is NEW. Never found before. Understand?

So once you understand this, in order for an existent, to not come from nothing, it has to have ALWAYS existed. If everything, sans, hypothetical other dimensions always exists, it freezes everything into the same state forever. Freezing everything into the same state forever is nothing at all, in this dimension.

So you need to split up dimensions where finite forms, constantly new are accessing eternal forms which are the templates of the observations...

If such eternal forms don't exist, it forces in this dimension (if that's all there is, as you're arguing) to freeze or to come from nothing at all. The force, is that eternal forms (templates for existents outside space and time) need to exist in order for new stuff to not come from nothing at all (these templates aren't nothing at all). If you remove the templates, than any new occurrence must come from nothing.

Now, remember the definition of nothing: isn't

That is also the main reason existence exists, because nothing: isn't.

The problem is that I understand your position all too well and you'd do well to consider this possibility. But if you explain it in a profoundly bad way, I can't know that you're referring to a thing I understand.

However your latest post is just about the most coherent I've ever heard you, well done.

The problem of your argument is that you are thinking in terms of identity statically as a premise. So it's no wonder you're concluding that the universe is constituted of static forms as a result. Circular.

Is a cat that has shed a hair the same cat? Of course. Is it an entirely different cat just because the same particles moved? Of course not - this is how identity is used in practice. It's even how YOU use identity whether you realise/admit it or not: you're using it in this very same argument such that it isn't a different argument every different way you formulate/phrase it or even spell it/type it from moment to moment - it's even how you're thinking of yourself, moving around, neurons firing, fingers pressing different keys, as the same person and not an entirely new person each time. Without a dynamic sense of identity, you wouldn't even be you from moment to moment.

So now, is there an eternal form of "you" (or of "human" etc etc) and NOT an eternal form of a universe with a particle in a new place? You can't have it both ways. If you're of the same eternal form of "you" however you move, and the universe is not of the same eternal form of "universe" because a particle moved, either you admit it's the same universe constituted of the same moving particles to achieve a different overall appearance, and your own identity stays in tact however you move, or like you're trying to say in your point: the universe is entirely novel because something shifted, and you admit you are not yourself from moment to moment. If you do the latter (which would be sticking with your argument), then good luck continuing this argument or at all!

So we've shown how a universe in a new arrangement isn't a new universe, so something e.g. particles coming together in a certain way to become recognisable as a spoon isn't physically something coming from nothing - only the mental label being validly applied to the very first spoon is something that came from nothing. And even then, the "mental" label of spoon in "physical" sound, writing or even thought is just the same "physical" somethings moving around making the same somethings in different arrangements, but now "mentally" recognised and called something else in this moment compared to the last one.

The proven conservation of energy is just another way of saying that it was always around just in different arrangements: same universe, same something continually coming from something. There is no nothing and no imaginary and inaccessible realm needed. Do I get to say "you either understand it or not" in a patronising way too?